The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international research organization located in Laxenburg, near Vienna, in Austria. IIASA conducts interdisciplinary scientific studies on environmental, economic, technological and social issues in the context of human dimensions of global change. IIASA’s mission is "to provide insights and guidance to policymakers worldwide by finding solutions to global and universal problems through applied systems analysis in order to improve human and social wellbeing and to protect the environment."[1]

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IIASA brings its experience of managing international tensions through science to today's global issues. Its multinational and multidisciplinary teams of researchers have a growing membership, now including the world's four largest economies.

IIASA is a non-governmental institution funded by scientific organizations in its member countries, which currently include: Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Egypt, Finland, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Republic of Korea, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Ukraine, and the USA.[3] Funding for the Institute also comes from contracts, grants, and donations from governments, international organizations, academia, business, and individuals.[4]

On October 4, 1972 representatives of the Soviet Union, United States, and 10 other countries from the Eastern and Western blocs met at The Royal Society in London to sign the charter establishing IIASA.[5] It was the culmination of six years’ effort driven forward by both the US President Lyndon Johnson and the USSR Premier Alexei Kosygin. For IIASA it was the beginning of a remarkable project to use scientific cooperation to build bridges across the Cold War divide and to confront growing global problems on a truly international scale.[6] The first scientist had arrived at IIASA in June, 1973.[7]

Clearly, success at bridge building and successful science would go hand in hand. But neither was a foregone conclusion. This was the 1970s, and most research organizations focused on national issues. Few encouraged researchers from different countries or disciplines to work together for the greater good.

To achieve its ambitious research vision, IIASA would have to break down the barriers between nations and disciplines. This it did, building international multidisciplinary teams to confront innumerable global challenges, both long-standing and emerging. For example, a study on water pollution carried out in the 1980s by a team of IIASA chemists, biologists, and economists still forms the basis of modern water policy design in Japan, USA, and the former USSR.

When the Cold War ended, IIASA’s sponsoring countries could have said “mission accomplished” and disbanded the Institute. IIASA had certainly helped foster mutual understanding among scientists from East and West. But it had also done more than this. IIASA had shown the scientific benefits of bringing together different nationalities and disciplines to work toward common goals. Indeed, this approach has been widely imitated, for example, in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme.

So instead of closing in the 1990s the Institute broadened its mandate from the East and West to a truly global focus. Today IIASA brings together a wide range of scientific skills to provide science-based insights into critical policy issues in international and national debates on global change.[8]

IIASA research focuses on complex problems that extend beyond a single country or a single discipline.

In 2010, IIASA launched a new strategic plan for the next ten years, which focuses on three general problem areas: Energy & Climate Change, Food & Water, and Poverty & Equity.[9]

Every year approximately 200 researchers from over 35 countries research at IIASA.[10] They work on these broader topics within and across 9 research programs: Advanced Systems Analysis, Ecosystems Services and Management, Energy, Evolution and Ecology, Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases, Risk, Policy and Vulnerability, Transitions to New Technologies, Water, and World Population.

The Global Energy Assessment, released in 2012. The report was a result of collaborative and integrated work of over 500 authors, analysts and reviewers worldwide who contributed independent, scientifically based and policy-relevant analysis of current and emerging energy issues and options. The assessment provides a thorough assessment of energy-related issues including sustainable development, including poverty eradication, climate change mitigation, health, energy security and energy access.[12] The entire assessment is available online as a PDF.

The Water Futures and Solutions: World Water Scenarios initiative, launched in 2012, aims to provide a similarly broad assessment of global water challenges, in much the same scope as the Global Energy Assessment.[13]

^McDONALD, A. (1998), Scientific Cooperation as a Bridge Across the Cold War Divide: The Case of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) . Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 866: 55–83. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1998.tb09147.x